We have a 6 hour road trip coming up next week with our 2 year old and I am already dreading it 
Last time we drove 3 hours she screamed for half of it. Anyone have tips that actually work for keeping toddlers happy in the car? We are open to anything at this point lol
Six hours with a 2 year old. Respect. You are brave. Okay here is what saved us on a similar trip last summer. We left at 5am while our son was still half asleep, buckled him in his pajamas with his blanket and he slept through the first 3 hours without even realizing we were in a car. By the time he woke up we were already past the worst of the drive and in a new interesting environment for him to look at. Timing the departure around nap or sleep schedules is honestly the single biggest trick most parents do not think about until trip number two 
Also pack way more snacks than you think you need. Snacks buy at least 20 minutes of peace every time
Okay ShredRed is right about the early departure thing, that strategy is gold. But just to add to it, we also made little activity bags for our daughter. Small ziplock bags with different things in each one, stickers, a small board book, a new cheap toy from the dollar store, some crayons and a small notepad. The rule was she could only open one bag at a time and she got a new one every hour. The novelty factor works incredibly well with toddlers. Something they have never seen before holds attention way longer than a familiar toy from home. Total cost was maybe 8 dollars and it stretched across the whole trip 
VoipMax the activity bag idea is so good, we did something similar and called them surprise bags which made our son even more excited to open them. One thing I want to add though is music. Not just any music, specifically toddler songs that they already know and love. We made a playlist of about 40 songs my daughter knew and she spent a solid hour singing along in her car seat which was both adorable and gave us zero complaints from the back seat for that entire stretch. Bonus tip, if you can find a sing along version with the lyrics on screen through your phone, even better. YouTube has tons of those 
Can I just say that road trips with toddlers are a completely different category of travel that nobody prepares you for Like you think it is just a longer version of a normal car ride and then minute 45 hits and you are pulling over at a gas station so your toddler can run around the parking lot for 8 minutes. And you know what? That is actually the move. Plan proper stops every 90 minutes to 2 hours. Let them get out, stretch, run around, touch grass literally. It resets them completely. We went from dreading our 5 hour drive to it being totally manageable once we stopped trying to power through and just built in those break stops intentionally
All the tips so far are great but nobody has mentioned the window cling stickers yet and I feel like that is a crime 
You can get packs of reusable window clings for under 5 dollars, animals, shapes, vehicles, whatever your toddler likes. They stick to the car window and peel off easily so your toddler can arrange them, remove them, stick them back. My son did this for nearly an hour on our last trip. No mess, no choking hazard if they are the right size, and something about the window surface just makes it more interesting than a regular flat page. ShedNet is also completely right about the stops, we do every 90 minutes minimum and it makes a massive difference
Adding a slightly more structured approach here. Before our last long trip I downloaded three new episodes of my daughter’s favorite show on Netflix and one new show she had never seen before. The familiar shows were comfort watches and the new one bought extra engagement time because everything was fresh. I also downloaded an audiobook version of her favorite picture book so she could listen to the story with the actual voices even without looking at a screen. Rotating between screen time, audio only, snacks, and window time in 20 to 30 minute blocks kept her from getting totally locked into one thing and melting down when it ended. Variety really is the key with toddlers 
This is such a common worry before the first long trip and I just want to say it is usually less terrible than you expect once you are actually in it. Toddlers are more adaptable than we give them credit for when the environment feels exciting rather than routine. We talked up the trip for three days before we left, told our daughter about all the things we would see out the window, made it feel like an adventure. She was genuinely excited to get in the car. Framing matters more than I expected. That said, VoipMax’s activity bag idea is something I wish I had known earlier because that is brilliant and we are stealing it for our next trip 
Okay nobody has said this yet so I will. A car mount for a tablet pointed at the back seat is one of the best parenting purchases I ever made. Not even joking. A cheap tablet running YouTube Kids or Netflix with a good pair of toddler headphones, the kind with a volume limit built in, and your child is genuinely content for stretches you would not believe. I know screen time gets complicated but for a six hour drive it is a tool not a habit. We also do an I Spy game out the window when she needs a break from the screen. Red cars, cows, bridges, she loves it and it keeps her looking outside and engaged with the actual journey too 
Respectfully, everyone here is underestimating the power of a brand new bag of gummy bears rationed out one at a time over 300 miles I am kidding. Mostly. But snacks on rotation genuinely work as a distraction tool. What we do is keep snacks in a small cooler between the front seats so we can hand things back without stopping. Grapes, cheese cubes, crackers, raisins, fruit pouches, all things that take a while to eat and do not cause a sugar crash right away. Between MicroLauncher’s screen rotation strategy and ShredRed’s early departure trick, you basically have the full playbook. Stack all of these together and your six hours should be very manageable 
Six hours. Two year old. I hope you have noise canceling headphones for the adults too Jokes aside, the one thing I have not seen mentioned is giving the toddler a specific job. Sounds ridiculous but it works. Our son was the official cloud counter. Every time he spotted a big cloud out the window he had to tell us how many. He took this extremely seriously and stared out the window looking for clouds for a surprisingly long time. You can do the same with colors, animals, trucks, whatever they are into. It makes them feel like they have a purpose and it keeps their brain busy without a screen. Toddlers want to feel like they are participating in something, not just passengers 
I want to push back gently on the idea that there is one magic solution here because every toddler is wildly different. My nephew does great with screens. My daughter absolutely refused to watch anything in the car until she was nearly 3. What worked for us was tactile stuff, play dough in a small container, a mess free painting book that only shows color when wet with water, magnetic drawing boards. Things she could physically do with her hands. KingSher’s cloud game is actually along the same lines, giving them an active role rather than passive watching. The common thread in everything on this thread is keeping them engaged rather than just occupying them. Active beats passive every time for the really restless ones 